2021 2023 Strategic Framework

2021–2023Strategic FrameworkAT-A-GLANCE

LISC | THREE YEAR STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK2

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting recession, and the anguished public outcry over the deaths of Black men and women at the hands of police coalesced to highlight the many levels at which our union is not working for all its members.

LISC is well positioned to meet the moment. Throughout our existence, our work has aspired to correct for the discrimination and exclusion that systems and policies like redlining have perpetuated.

At the same time, however, it is clear today that to achieve truly resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity, we must work to more intentionally disrupt the powerful correlation between race and poverty that has resulted from generations of social, economic and political marginalization and violence. In our next phase of organizational growth, not only do we need to think more boldly and ambitiously, we need to absorb the lessons of the pandemic – that a universal remedy will never fully benefit the hardest-hit communities. This requires us to deliberately and thoughtfully consider how LISC can support an inclusive

recovery and rebuilding process alongside our partner communities, building systems that address structural disinvestment and implicit bias. While our mission and approach will not change, we will ask hard questions of ourselves to ensure that our work is actively reversing prevailing racist patterns and practices.

The following priorities lay out how LISC plans to build on our core work over the next three years while striving to ensure that our contributions maximize equity and impact. LISC will embark on our most ambitious initiative yet, Project 10X, which will invest – with an eye towards scale – in businesses, community organizations, developers and projects that build equity for people and communities of color.

Led by communities and local partners, now is the time for us to collectively redesign our society and improve our systems to create the future that we want: one that is safer, healthier, and more equitable.


Introduction

Over the course of LISC’s more than 40 years of work, our comprehensive approach to community development, local focus and national scale have made us a unique leader in the fight to improve quality of life in communities that have been marginalized and underinvested. LISC’s strategy has always been to work alongside local communities to effectively channel capital, enhance infrastructure, and change the systems that create inequality of opportunity.

Strategic FrameworkAT-A-GLANCE

What we doComprehensive community development

INVEST in people and communities that have been underinvested and marginalized

BUILD organizational & ecosystem capacity to equip local partners to effectively implement community and economic development strategies

ADVISE residents, organizations and investors seeking to deliver solutions in their communities

CONVENE resources and actors across sectors

ADVOCATE for residents by engaging in policy efforts at the national, state and local levels

How we do itDrive systems change

Operational enablers

AUGMENT collaboration and alignment across the enterprise to maximize impact and grow to the next level of scale

ADAPT AND IMPROVE business processes to enable effective program implementation.

SUPPORT a culture of belonging, learning and thriving across employee tenure

ALIGNMENT & COLLABORATION

PROCESS MANAGEMENT

PEOPLE, TALENT MANAGEMENT & CULTURE

Support EQUITABLE RECOVERY AND REBUILDING by investing in wealth building and resilience supports for individuals and communities that are Black, Indigenous and people of color

1

Pursue an ambitious POLICY agenda across all levels of government.

5

Continue attracting new PARTNERS and expand the diversity of community voices in the work

4

Grow CAPITAL aggregation and deployment, establishing intentional impact parameters

2

Augment the IMPLEMENTATION CAPACITY of the community and economic development ecosystem

3

SUPPORT ENTERPRISES in building robust economies and communities

TRANSFORM PLACES experiencing distress and under-investment

DRIVE SYSTEMS TRANSFORMATION by working to address institutional challenges and injustices

EMPOWER PEOPLE to contribute to and take advantage of economic growth

To help forge resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity across AmericaOur Mission

WHO WE ARE WHERE WE ARE GOING THREE-YEAR PRIORITIES


Who We Are

Our Mission Together with residents and partners, LISC helps forge resilient and inclusive communities of opportunity across America – great places to live, work, visit, do business and raise families.

What we doLISC is a comprehensive community development enterprise. We work holistically across sectors to address the interconnected factors that drive inequality of opportunity.

How we do itLISC drives systems change. LISC drives change by working through our embedded local relationships to align capital, capacity and neighborhood visions.


1 Support equitable recovery and rebuilding by investing in wealth building and resilience supports for individuals and communities that

are Black, Indigenous and people of color.

As with many disasters, those individuals and communities already burdened by a history of underinvestment and marginalization have not only been more susceptible to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, they are also likely to face greater challenges in recovering from this shock. LISC will support recovery and resiliency in these communities. We will focus on growing and strengthening programs that not only promote financial stability but that generate enduring wealth and equity, including supporting small businesses and advancing housing preservation and ownership. We will expand our safety and justice programming to strengthen the national ecosystem of community safety and justice reform practitioners and organizations. Finally, we will continue our commitment to place by investing in neighborhood assets that promote social determinants of health, including safety and justice, digital access, childcare, education, arts, facilities and green/resilient development.

2 Grow capital aggregation and deployment, establishing intentional impact parameters.

LISC will build on our current growth trajectory, augmenting our infrastructure so we can continue to scale our capital deployment capabilities. Throughout our investment and grantmaking activities, LISC will strive to establish more intentional processes that maximize the impact that our capital has in communities. This includes centering racial equity in capital deployment processes, developing tools to measure and deepen impact and community participation, and growing deployment of equity-like products.

3 Augment the implementation capacity of the community and economic development ecosystem.

LISC relies on local partner organizations who can ensure community ownership, serve as responsible stewards of community improvement and lead implementation of projects and initiatives. To support these partners, we will scale existing programs and innovate new approaches to drive organization sustainability, build development capacity and develop emerging leaders in

Where We Are GoingTHREE YEAR PRIORITIES



the sector, with particular attention to BIPOC individuals and organizations. As state and local governments look to partners for support delivering relief and recovery capital, we will continue growing our work as an implementation partner and technical assistance provider to these state and local entities.

4 Continue attracting new partners and expand the diversity of community voices in the work.

A growing number of organizations and individuals in the corporate, arts, sports and philanthropic sectors are looking for partners who can hold collective space for important conversations and channel capital in comprehensive, equitable and impactful ways. LISC will continue to serve as a bridge, working across sectors to drive collaboration towards equity-centered community development agendas. We will also enhance vehicles that engage residents and other community stakeholders, in order to grow community representation in decision-making processes.

5 Pursue an ambitious policy agenda across all levels of government.

Policy continues to be a critical lever for LISC and the sector to drive systems change. At the federal level, LISC will advocate for comprehensive national policies that protect critical resources and develop new proposals that can lead to transformational change. Recognizing that state and local governments are key to policy innovation and resource distribution, we will also intensify our policy work at the state and local levels.


Measuring progress on racial equity In this defining moment, it is imperative that we reckon with the fact that institutional racism is embedded in our social, economic and political systems. LISC is committed to centering and advancing racial equity as we implement the programmatic priorities laid out above. To do so, LISC has launched Project 10X, a 10-year agenda to support community organizations, businesses and developers working to close the racial wealth, health and opportunity gap.

Over the next three years, LISC will work to institutionalize and embed explicit equity metrics into our organizational culture, language, policies, investments, practices and programs.

Programmatically, we will implement mechanisms to track and report on such metrics as the share of LISC investments that go to BIPOC-led nonprofits, the share of LISC-supported real estate projects that employ diverse enterprises, and the share of LISC investments that go to minority-owned business enterprises.

Operationally, we will assess every aspect of our work - our culture, decision-making processes, and systems - to determine the impact on Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other people of color, and to ensure that our work advances equity and justice. We will track such metrics as the percentage of LISC’s vendors that are owned by diverse leaders, the diversity of LISC’s Local Advisory Committees, and diversity across our internal recruitment and promotion pipelines.

Project 10X focus areas• Generating enduring

wealth and equity through homeownership and small business ownership

• Building credit and savings and strengthening financial institutions led by Black, Indigenous and People of Color

• Investing in community wellness, digital access, education, arts, and justice reform

• Supporting quality jobs with good wages and benefits


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2021 2023 Strategic Framework

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